Digital manufacturing—the development direction of the manufacturing technology in the 21st century

After introducing the concepts of digital manufacturing technology, the discipline framework of digital manufacturing is presented in the paper by discussing its basic concept, theory foundation, key technology and scientific problems in detail. As the core of the advanced manufacturing technology, digital manufacturing is gradually becoming the main manufacturing technology of the twenty-first century. Firstly, the main features of digital manufacturing are indicated and its key supporting technologies are investigated by grouping them into four levels related to product development, numerical control, production management, and enterprise collaboration, respectively. Moreover, the existing problems in the research on the multi-discipline theory foundation of digital manufacturing such as manufacturing informatics, computational manufacturing, and manufacturing intelligence, are also indicated. Then, the core scientific problems of digital manufacturing are discussed in depth, which focuses on digitization of manufacturing information, modeling of manufacturing constraints, high-speed and high-precision numerical control theory, and Internet-based collaboration and integration. Lastly, the development trends and application perspectives of digital manufacturing are concluded.